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The origin and development of the concept of the ‘laws of nature’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John R. Milton
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Extract

TheIdea of explaining natural phenomena by appealing to laws of nature is one that is thoroughly familiar to the modern mind. This idea does not perhaps appear quite as natural as it did a century ago, when Engels proclaimed to the mourners at Marx's funeral that just as Darwin had discovered the law of development of organic nature so Marx had discovered the law of development of human history. Twentieth-century historians do not in general conceive their task as including the formulation of laws of history, and the discoveries of modern physics since Maxwell have for the most part been expressed in terms of principles and equations rather than laws. Nevertheless, despite these changes, we are still quite accustomed to thinking in terms of laws of nature; and just because it seems natural it is easy to assume that it is natural for human beings seeking to explain the phenomena of nature to do so by enquiring after the laws by which these phenomena are governed.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , December 1981 , pp. 173 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1981

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References

(1) Cf. the accounts of Aristotelian and later dynamics in Clagett, M., Greek Science in Antiquity (New York 1955), pp. 64–72, 169–177Google Scholar, in Sambursky, S., The Physical World of the Greeks (London 1956), pp. 92–94Google Scholar and The Physical World of Late Antiquity (London 1962), pp. 62–70Google Scholar.

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(8) Diels-Kranz, 31 B 9.

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(32) The Institutes of the Christian Religion, III. xxiii. 2.

(33) This appears to be the thesis of Paolo Casini: ‘Pour s’en tenir tout simplement a la terminologie, on s'attendrait de voir apparaitre le mot “loi” en même temps que la chose: c'est-à-dire au moment où les cadres intellectuels de l'ancienne physique sont bouleversés par le nouveau critère de la quantité, par la géométrisation de l'image du monde. En réalité, la chose s'est imposée avant le mot; l'usage du terme “loi” s'est généralisé de façon curieusement tardive'. Casini, P., La loi naturelle: réflexion politique et sciences exactes, Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century, CLI (1976), pp. 423–424Google Scholar.

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(41) Bacon's use of the word ‘law’ is numerous and not obviously consistent. The most apparently modern uses are in De Principiis atque Originibus, in Spedding, J., Ellis, R. L. and Heath, D. D. (eds), The Works of Francis Bacon (London 1874), vol. III, p. 115Google Scholar (English translation, vol. V, p. 496); and in Novum Organum, i. 75, ii. 2, ii.5, ii.17.

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(43) The Institutes of the Christian Religion, I. xvi.5. Calvin on the whole avoided law terminology, even though he thought of the world as a machine obeying the direct commands of God; the reason appears to be that he thought of all God's commands as special commands regulating particular events. Every single year, month and day is regulated by a new and special providence of God (I. xvi.2). The existence of excep-tionless universal laws would suggest, contrary to Calvin's intentions, that God is more interested in the broad outline of what happens than in particular events.

(44) Francis Oakley, , Christian theology and Newtonian science: the rise of the concept of the laws of nature, Church History, XXX (1961), p. 455 n. 84Google Scholar. This is an invaluable piece of research which deserves to be better known than it apparently is.

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(54) Ethics, book I, prop, xxxiii.

(55) A System of Logic, III.iv.I.

(56) von Arnim, H., Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (Leipzig 1903–1924), I. 537Google Scholar. Henceforth abbreviated to SVF.

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(59) Ibid. 398b17–23.

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(61) Metamorphoses, xv. 71.

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